


Taunts and Haunts

by kronette



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 04:36:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2534426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kronette/pseuds/kronette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An expanded version of something I posted a few days ago privately. Lister takes a dare from his mates back in Liverpool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taunts and Haunts

"What's the matter, Lister?" his friends taunted him. "You _scared_?" 

Lister shook his head frantically, though his eyes were locked on the rickety old house. He'd been dared to walk up and ring the doorbell, but his chubby little legs weren't moving. The rumours went that Old Man O'Doole had accidentally killed his boy, thinking his teenaged son sneaking back into the house after two a.m. was a burglar. Both spirits were said to haunt the place, and the For Sale sign reappeared every few months as the buyers were scared off. 

He stumbled forward as hands shoved at his back. "Go on, you chicken. Bet you don't even make it to the fence." 

"I bet he doesn't even get to the other side of the street!" 

"I reckon he takes off back to his gran's with piss running down his leg!" 

Lister cringed at his friends' taunts and laughter at his expense. He felt the burn of tears and quickly blinked them away. Squaring his shoulders, he took a step toward the house, then another. Cat-calls and more rude taunts followed him across the street, down the sidewalk, and up to the gate. He stretched out his shaking hand and pushed at the gate, recoiling as it gave a hideous squeak and slowly fell open. 

Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Lister concentrated on one foot in front of the other, drawing nearer to the front door. Mail piled on the front step, spilling out from the mail slot. 

Heart hammering and palms sweaty, Lister raised a trembling hand and pressed the door bell.

Nothing happened. No sound, no buzzing; nothing. The bloody bell didn't work! He'd risked throwing up his lunch and pissing his trousers and being laughed at for the rest of his life, for _nothing_. 

Dejected, he started to turn away, when a cold breath raised the hairs on the back of his neck. 

"Black cats bring good luck," an inhuman voice whispered, spewing more icy cold air onto his skin. Gooseflesh raced down his arms as he started to shake with cold, but his feet wouldn't cooperate and _get him the smeg out of there_. 

Eventually, the coldness stopped being oppressive and he was able to move, and he _moved_. He ran down the sidewalk, past his jeering friends, back to his gran's, where he dove into his bed. He huddled beneath his covers, staring at his pictures of Fiji until he felt warm again. 

=-=-=-=

Lister watched with an aching heart as the strange portal closed in on itself, having only been present on board _Red Dwarf_ long enough for them to determine it was a linkway to the past. It wasn't large enough to fit a person, and it's ability to transmit sound back to the past had at first seemed useless.

Then, Lister had remembered a time when he was 8 years old, and a strange voice that had haunted his dreams for weeks. All his mates had stood at that porch and tried to get the voice to talk to them, but it never happened again. Just that one time, and with such an odd statement that it had stuck with Lister through all his years. 

"You knew, didn't you?" Rimmer's voice called to him softly. 

He roused himself and straightened his shoulders. "What's that?" he bluffed, but he felt Rimmer's eyes on him as he pushed the portable refrigeration unit back against the wall. 

"You remembered hearing a voice telling you about a black cat, and you sent a message back to yourself, didn't you?" Rimmer related with surprising perception.

"Don’t know what you mean," Lister replied lightly, hoping Rimmer would pick up on his melancholy and let it drop. Finding out he'd fathered himself and left his baby self in a pub back on Earth had been bad enough, but he kept discovering that his future self had interfered with his past self. Didn't he have _anyone_ who wasn't _himself_? Why was he stuck in this endless loop of always _just him_? 

Rimmer interrupted his thoughts with another revelation. "How many breeds of cats did you look at on Mimas, before you chose Frankenstein?" 

Caught out, Lister shrugged and looked at the floor. "Does it matter?" 

He heard the chair scrape along the floor, then saw Rimmer's shiny black shoes come into focus. Rimmer's soft voice rattled him to his core: "It matters to me." 

A barely familiar thrum; a nearly-forgotten pull warmed the air, and Lister breathed deep of it. It escaped on a shaky exhale as Rimmer's fingertips touched his cheek. 

Rimmer's voice had deepened with emotion. "If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't…" 

It was tentative and scared him smegless, this touching of lips – Rimmer's lips. But his lips were warm and parted slightly and Lister couldn't resist slipping his tongue between them, to sneak a taste. 

He felt the touch of Rimmer's hand against the back of his neck, the warmth penetrating the cold that had settled in his bones since discovering what the portal meant. 

"You'll never be alone, Lister," Rimmer promised before deepening the kiss.


End file.
